Thursday, March 23, 2017

Of Carpenter's Squares, Property, and Love in the Time of the Great Derangement[1]

For your entertainment
(and edification) this month, we've been asked to weigh in on the institution
of the modern family: what might this curious phenomenon look like? What do we
understand by 'normal' in the 21st century?

Before attempting to think-write
my way through the first part of this editorial prompt, I have to deconstruct
the second part of it, because what is 'normal' anyway?

Semiotics demonstrates,
convincingly to my mind, that there is no such thing as absolute meaning; all
meaning is contextual, and endlessly deferred besides (every word you read alters
your understanding of what preceded it). What therefore, I ask in a second
rhetorical flourish, is 'normal'? A dictionary definition might suggest that it
means conforming to a standard; encountering only the expected. If you trace its
etymology, you'll see that it was derived from the Latin for 'norma', a
carpenter's square, in the 17th century. I like this. A carpenter's square; a
measure of sorts, to establish right angles. Nothing uncommon, untoward or
acute about 'normal' then.

However, I put to you
that 'normal' is a relative measure, not an absolute one - more a band, really
- and it is an entirely contextual construct, prone to change. Slavery was once
'normal' lest we forget, as was the idea that the earth was squarely (hah) the
centre of the known universe; burning women at the stake for practicing
'witchcraft' and infant-marriage have been the norm too. Change has almost
always come from a challenging of the normative, not compliance with it.

With that out of the
way, I can now focus my attention on the other part of the editorial prompt:
who or what is/makes a modern family? Setting aside the 'modern' for a moment,
let's decode 'family' first: families are the building blocks (the kind delineated
with a carpenter's square so that they're just 'right') societies are made of. The historian in me
cringes at playing so fast and loose with 'broad-stroke' tellings, but it
wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to trace back the institution we call 'family'
to the beginnings of settled communities practicing agriculture, and the
concept of 'ownership' which seems to have come with this development. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State, Friedrich Engles holds that the monogamous family "is
founded on male supremacy for the pronounced purpose of breeding children of
indisputable paternal lineage...(which) is required, because these children
shall later on inherit the fortune of their father. The monogamous family is
distinguished from the pairing family by the far greater durability of wedlock,
which can no longer be dissolved at the pleasure of either party. As a rule, it
is only the man who can still dissolve it and cast off his wife," (1908,
76). For this society to perpetuate itself, heterosexual monogamous coupling
has to be the norm. And this is almost certainly one of the most important
reasons why any sort of challenge to this creed - whether from the women's
movement or from the LGBTQIA space - has been rabidly lampooned and
dismissed. Here: have a neat little 'vintage' poster that ties in misogyny, homophobia and
general all-round bigotry in equal parts. Never say I give you nothing.

(Source: http://www.revelist.com/feminism/anti-feminist-posters/1246)

Not to
sound like too much of a wet blanket, but to me, the modern family looks a whole
lot like its predecessor, the one rooted in power relations which place the
patriarch squarely at the heart of its structure, with this structure itself serving as just
another brick in the wall that capitalism and consumer culture have together built
around us all. But what of the gains made by the LGBTQIA movement you ask? The
legalisation of same sex marriage in America (and a host of other countries) or
the recognition of same sex civil unions elsewhere? Sure, this is a victory
that cannot - should not - be understated. However, it comes at a time when fewer
people are getting married at all (and divorce rates are higher among the
people who do)[2],
suggesting to my mind, a last-ditch effort to raise flagging numbers for a
system of societal organisation which is finding less takers than it ever has within
its historically traditional demographic (read: heterosexual couples).

What
bearing marriage has - and will continue to have - on the societal building
block we call the family, only time will tell. In the meantime, more power to
them each and all, who seek to design the size, shape and origin story for
their choices and couplings; for their ability to create communities premised
on love, understanding, compassion and the possibility of happiness in a world
intent on destroying itself whole. Family, to me, is what you make. Family, to me, is what you
choose to be a part of. So much more powerful
than the double-bind of blood (birth) and ownership (right), no?

[1]
See last month's post on climate change for more on what Amitav Ghosh calls the
'Great Derangement'.

[2]
See the 2016 OECD report on Marriage and Divorce Rates for more details: https://www.oecd.org/els/family/SF_3_1_Marriage_and_divorce_rates.pdf